The Power of Small Gestures

Our family visited in the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this past Monday.  It’s a very interesting place, the sight of rocket and shuttle launches for the last half a century and the repository of parts of the actual aircraft and detailed pictures and explanations about space exploration.

It’s extraordinary in so many ways.  For example, when you consider how rudimentary computer technology was when the Apollo rocket was launched, it’s especially remarkable that all of the calculations necessary for a successful launch and landing added up.   

We saw an IMAX movie about the Atlantis shuttle, which was launched on a mission to repair the Hubble space telescope in May of 2009. As I think I’ve shared, I have some discomfort with heights such that I would not be considered as, say, the resident chaplain for a shuttle flight crew.

But I found it amazing to watch as the crew of the Atlantis left the shuttle and, while tethered to it, emerged into the weightlessness of space to repair the telescope, which had, among other things, been photographing the births of stars on galaxies millions of light years away.

One of the astronauts on that mission described how he refastened a portion of the telescope, which required him, suspended in space by a tether, to remove multiple small screws and then refasten them.

He said that in order to be successful, he just focused with zen-like precision on the task at hand.

I thought about the paradox here, that someone surrounded by the enormous cosmic grandeur of space would focus on such tiny gestures. 

And it seemed worth a few moments for me to encourage us all to consider the significance of small gestures in light of realities that can seem overwhelming right here on earth.  In this regard, I want to consider the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and, in a more contemporary vein, a recent book about the State of Israel by noted journalist, Ari Shavit.

The Torah portion we read recently presents events on quite a grand scale – the final three plagues and the beginning of the actual exodus from Egypt.  And yet, the essential drama is quite small-scale.  Two men continue to confront one another as the showdown between Moses and Pharaoh reaches its conclusion.  They are bargaining about the details of the liberation – do only the men go, as Pharaoh wants, or the men, women, children and livestock, as Moses advocates?

And when Pharaoh finally relents and tells Moses - all of you can leave, men, women, children and livestock, to go worship your God - he adds a personal request.  וברכתם גם אותי Uverachtem gam oti.  Bless me also.

So interesting from a geopolitical perspective, and so resonant through the ages, that the fate of two nations is so affected by the psychological interplay between two individuals.

Coming on the heels of their wrangling and jockeying, what did Pharaoh mean when he asked the Israelites to bless him?  And what did Moses respond?

According to the Mehilta, an early midrash on the book of Exodus, Pharaoh was afraid that as a first-born, he would be killed as part of the 10^th plague and therefore, he wanted Moses and the Israelites to pray on his behalf.

That’s one possibility.  Another is that he was looking for some overall reassurance despite his defeat. Recall when Isaac’s son Esau realized that the preferred blessing had been given to his younger brother, Jacob, and asked his father if he had a blessing left for him.

Is it possible that Pharaoh, finally realizing that the Israelites were receiving the ultimate blessings of victory and release, was asking if there's a sort of consolation blessing for him?   

And what does Moses respond?  The Torah records no verbal response.  After Pharaoh asks for a blessing, the Egyptians hasten the departure of the Israelites for fear of their lives.  The Israelites then ask the Egyptians for silver and gold objects, which they are given.

Rabbi Jack Bloom, also a psychologist, has written that it’s unfortunate that Moses gave Pharaoh no reassurance, offered no blessing whatsoever.  Perhaps in that quiet moment, one person to another, he could have said something like, “you tormented us.  We’re leaving.  But ultimately Egypt will be ok.” 

It would have been a small gesture.  But according to Jack Bloom, it might have prevented some heartache in the future.  When cosmic events are hanging in the balance, it pays to focus on the small gestures.

Over vacation, I read the much-acclaimed new book about Israel by Ari Shavit called My Promised Land.  Shavit writes about the complex, intractable challenges that Israel faces. 

Shavit structures the book around key events that took place during decisive times in modern Israel’s history.  He begins with his great-grandfather’s trip to Palestine in 1897 and describes, among other things, Israel’s conquest of Lydda and Ramla, the draining of the swamps, the rise of the settlements, the rise and fall of Shas leading Aryeh Deri, the surge of entertainment clubs in Tel Aviv. 

Leon Wieseltier, in his review, wrote the following about the author:

Nowhere is Shavit a stranger in his own land. The naturalness of his identity, the ease with which he travels among his own people, has the paradoxical effect of freeing him for a genuine confrontation with the contradictions and the crimes he discovers. His straightforward honesty is itself evidence of the “normalization” to which the founders of Zionism aspired for the Jews in their homeland; but it nicely confounds their expectation that normality would bring only contentment. Anxiety, skepticism, fear and horror are also elements of a normal life.

Shavit is on the left-wing of the Israeli political spectrum.  He is a columnist for the left-leaning Ha’aretz newspaper who views the West Bank settlements as a huge impediment to peace and believes that Israeli and Palestinian narratives are tragically at odds with one another.

Yet he also criticizes the left for widely maintaining that if only Israel would withdraw from the West Bank, major problems would begin to be resolved.  He writes that there is a realistic likelihood that the West Bank could become a launching pad for Iranian backed Hezbollah.  He also agrees with Netanyahu that the threat of a nuclear Iran is real and that the seriousness of this threat had been underplayed for too long.

Wherever you are in your own political views regarding Israel, I think you’ll appreciate Shavit’s book and as I considered my theme for this morning’s sermon, I gained clarity into the reason for its success.

Shavit is sensitive to the details.   He appreciates the significance of small gestures, positive and negative. 

For example, in his chapter on his great-grandfather’s auspicious visit over 100 years ago, he speculates that his father probably failed truly to acknowledge the plethora of Arab villages in then-Palestine as he was given a tour of local Jewish communities.

He writes about what it was like for him and his contemporaries to serve in Gaza in the IDF reserves as Palestinian teens were being interrogated – how difficult it was initially for middle-aged Israeli doctors, lawyers and journalists to witness and participate in this at first, and how many managed to adjust to it in short order.

And yet, toward the end of this chapter in which he offers his critique of the occupation of Gaza, he writes, by way of conclusion, that shortly after Israel pulled out of Gaza, Hamas took over and instituted a security force more fierce and violent toward fellow Palestinians than the IDF had been.

The book is deeply frustrating.  Shavit does not maintain any one partisan position exclusively and again and again, he describes the intractable realities that stem from Israel’s existence as a Jewish state surrounded by hundreds of millions of Muslims growing increasingly radical and, within its own borders, containing two peoples with radically different narratives about their own identities and rights.

And yet, the story is also uplifting, as Shavit describes the Israeli impulse, not just to survive, but to achieve a semblance of normalcy.

The small gestures, which include his friendship with a prominent Palestinian lawyer and the recent baby boom of children to parents across the ideological spectrum, are the sources of greatest optimism for Shavit.

We are, to be sure, not negotiating the release of the ancient Israelites, nor are those of us who live in the US navigating the complex realities of living in the Jewish state.

And we surely will not likely be asked to repair a space telescope while dangling in space.

But I invite each of us to consider the larger contours of our lives – the people who depend on us, the impact of our lives on the future of our people and our planet – and to ask ourselves, what are the small gestures?  What are the tiny parts that we need to juggle?  What are the small screws that we may sometime need to apply?  What are the blessings that we can offer when asked, and even when not asked?   

From ancient Egypt to modern Israel, to outer space and then back to Great Neck, we should not underestimate the power of the small gesture.

Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on January 4, 2014